Managing and Delivering Welfare

The emergence of the ‘new public management’ (NPM) saw an increased emphasis on performance management and techniques from private management being brought into welfare services. In more normal times, managers are often depicted as near-villains – portrayed in television series as preventing clinicians and teachers from doing their jobs by imposing rules and demanding budget cuts. The academic literature on the organisation and management of public services is often portrayed as showing a movement from what was termed the ‘old public administration’ to the NPM, with that shift occurring during the 1980s. Some public managers seem to have gone further and simply found ways of lying in their statistical returns to government to make it look like their measured performance was actually better than it really was. The pandemic has reminded us of the crucial importance of public welfare services.